


bitter, bitter

by zjofierose



Series: holding his heart in his hands [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Comfort, Feelings, Grief/Mourning, Keith sleeps through this entire fic, Krolia is MOTY, Krolia/Shiro bonding, Long Term Unrequited Love, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, and aren't in an official "Relationship", and by unrequited i mean they haven't been boning, bb needs his space, but that's good because Shiro has a lot to process ok, i mean have you seen this show, no betas here we die like women, not that they don't love each other deeply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: In the desertI saw a creature, naked, bestial,Who, squatting upon the ground,Held his heart in his hands,And ate of it.I said, “Is it good, friend?”“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;“But I like it“Because it is bitter,“And because it is my heart.”(it's just there's a lot going on with Shiro, and Keith could feel free to wake up at any moment, that would be just fine...)





	bitter, bitter

**Author's Note:**

> so, I think this is inaccurate if you actually parse the timeline, but, for the purposes of this fic, kindly assume that, after they managed to get Voltron to grow wings, they basically arrived back at Earth very quickly, like in a matter of hours. 
> 
> my intent here is that Shiro and Keith have a very deep bond, and that they are in love with each other, but they have yet to use their words to Have A Conversation About This or Get Into An Official Relationship, because, well, the universe keeps needing them. so, it's pre-slash in the sense that they are not a public couple, but it's established relationship in the sense that there's very clearly no one else for either of them.
> 
> also, it's entirely possible that this sucks a lot; i kinda wrote it in a fugue state, thinking about how MUCH Shiro's had happen to him, and how little time he's had to actually deal with shit, and how that would affect him after the end of season seven.

Captain Takashi Shirogane’s memories of the moments after the lions came streaking to earth are chaotic. He remembers the afterimage of their flight on the back of his eyelids like doomed stars, remembers giving orders for search and rescue teams. He remembers bringing Atlas down, remembers somehow finding himself in front of the hulking heap of twisted metal that is the black lion. He remembers how Krolia’s lavender skin turned grey at the sight of Keith when they managed to get the mouth of the lion open, remembers lifting Keith’s body carefully into his arms, the familiar shape unexpectedly dense and utterly limp with unconsciousness.

He remembers watching the medivac fly away, because for all that his entire being is in that tiny and swiftly disappearing vehicle, he has to help recover the others, and he doesn’t have the luxury of valuing one over many.

“It will be ok,” Krolia had said, taking his arm as the medics efficiently stripped away Keith’s battered breast plate, “go. Take care of the others. I’ll stay with him.”

He remembers catching a glimpse of himself in the polished viewscreen of the pod he takes back to Atlas, remembers the bloody fingerprints pressed on his vambrace.

\--

They find the other lions quickly, and thank goodness, because Allura’s lion was water tight, but she wouldn’t have lasted too long underwater without more oxygen supplies. Everyone survives, though some are more banged up than others, and Shiro forces himself to take a moment to be deeply grateful. The Alteans bounce back quickly, even the mice, and Lance gets away with nothing worse than a broken arm. The real miracle is Kosmo, who somehow knew to go for Kaltenecker and zap her just in time to the Garrison courtyard where she’s been calmly mowing the lawn ever since.

Pidge, Hunk, and Keith took the fall the hardest. Pidge comes out of the hospital in a week with two leg casts and a promise from Matt to build her the best mobility robot ever. Hunk managed to do some internal damage, and promptly gets appendicitis, but is up and conscious sooner than expected, all things considered. Shiro thinks that Shay’s presence goes a long way toward boosting his morale, which everyone knows is an important piece of the healing process.

Keith… Keith lost a lot of blood, and goes immediately into surgery. Krolia keeps him appraised via the occasional terse comm message through the rest of the day and into the night, no extensive details, but enough that he knows what’s happening. Keith’s out of the ICU by the time Shiro turns up at his room hours and hours later, but it’s still a shock to see him lying in the hospital bed wrapped in white, his face so pale and his body so small. Shiro doesn’t realize he’s wringing his cap in his hands until Krolia comes over and takes her hand in his to guide him to a chair next to the bed.

“It looks worse than it is,” she says, and she sounds as tired as he feels. “He’s a fighter; he’ll be fine.”

Shiro nods. She wouldn’t lie to him, he knows that. She’s a Galra warrior, if anyone believes in sugarcoating anything, it’s definitively not her.

“Has he woken up?” he asks, trying to focus on the familiar shape of Keith’s face under the bandages, trying to look past the wires and cords and machines.

“No,” she says, and frowns. “It’s unclear what his mixed heritage will mean for his healing process. He’s the only Galra/Human child I’ve ever known of; it’s impossible to predict.”

Shiro nods again. It makes sense; Galra are larger, stronger, faster than humans, with different looks, different tendencies. Keith is stronger and faster than any human should be, nearly on par with Krolia herself, but he’s small for a Galra, even on the small side for a human, or he was. Who knows what other inconsistencies lie in his DNA, or how his body will interpret human medicine.

Krolia must be thinking similar things, because she turns to Shiro and asks, “Was he ever injured at the Garrison?”

It pains her to have to ask about the time in Keith’s life when she was gone, he can hear it in her voice, so he doesn’t comment on her not knowing, just shakes his head.

“The occasional cut or bruise, but no. Nothing like this. Not in the time I knew him.”

Krolia leans down and strokes a lock of hair from Keith’s face, and Shiro focuses on the way the sheet over Keith’s chest is rising and falling, because he is otherwise more still than Shiro has ever seen him, and it’s terrifying.

“He’ll be fine,” she says again, and Shiro isn’t sure who she’s trying to convince, but he nods along anyway.

\--

There’s no time for anything, and it frustrates him beyond belief. He’s needed everywhere: he has to help use Atlas’ strength to clear rubble and lift debris and aid in the recovery efforts. The generals and the scientists want to quiz him, and then test him, and then quiz him again. Sam Holt, who has kept more about Shiro under his hat than Shiro can ever thank him for, would also very much like to pick his brain (figuratively) and his body (less figuratively) to better understand all of the things he knows about, but hasn’t shared with anyone else. Allura and Corran want to ask him _everything_ about humans and their culture and their politics. The other paladins want him to meet their families and spend time with them and approve of their work with the rebuilding. And Shiro’s happy to help, he _is_ , he’s happy to be here and to be a part of this, he is so, so grateful that this world still exists, and that he means so much to so many.

But also, he’s tired. Deeply, achingly, tired.

He goes back the first night, back to the sterile, packed up Garrison quarters he left years ago. Some kind soul has put a set of sheets on the bed for him, and laid a folded towel on the dresser, but the emptiness echoes around him. He bathes and lies down, and sleeps not at all in the silent, stuffy dark.

Home is… nowhere right now, he thinks. Not the Garrison, not the Atlas. The Castle of Lions is gone, and the house he grew up in is too far away to stay there and still be able to do the work he needs to do on base. If it’s even still standing; he hasn’t had time to check.

In the morning, he drinks two cups of black coffee and accesses his personal storage locker. He packs a duffel with a few changes of clothes and a towel, picks up some Garrison issue toiletries, and locks up his room again. He goes to see Keith first, and Krolia just smiles when she sees the bag over his shoulder.

“How is he?” Shiro asks, and she gives a delicate shrug.

“Heavily medicated. They’re keeping him under for a few days so he can heal without any added stress,” she says, and takes the strap of the bag from his hand. “Here, I’ll take this. You can keep it over here by the window.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Shiro says, because he wasn’t sure exactly what he had in mind, but blatantly moving into Keith’s hospital room wasn’t specifically what he had planned. “And the staff won’t like it. I’m not family.”

“No,” Krolia agrees, “but this is more efficient. And I don’t think they’ll tell me no. Do you?”

She smiles with all her teeth, and Shiro shakes his head, his hand resting on the corner of Keith’s bed. No, he thinks, he doesn’t imagine they will.

\--

He brings some food when he comes back to the Garrison hospital that night. It’s late, another sixteen hour day, but he hasn’t eaten yet, and he doesn’t know if Krolia’s had a chance to get out and get anything but hospital food, so he grabs some extra. It’s nothing fancy, just a few sandwiches and some fruit, but the look on her face when he holds it out is grateful, and he’s glad he thought of it.

Keith is looking better, Shiro thinks, or at least there are fewer tubes and cords coming from him, which is reassuring. Krolia’s digging into a sandwich with single-minded focus, so Shiro steals a longer glance. There are bruises blooming under both eyes, and Keith’s hair is matted into a dark tangle on the pillow. Shiro would never have thought to describe his looks as “alien” before he met, well, aliens, but the resemblance to Krolia is strong in the shape of his face, the length of his fingers, and the faint purple undertone to his skin. Shiro’d always thought Keith was just unnaturally pale, but, no, apparently he genuinely is a little more purple than other people.

“What was he like?” Krolia asks, and Shiro settles into the chair opposite hers on the other side of Keith’s bed. It’s a cheap recliner, but the feeling of sitting down and putting his feet up is exquisite. “When you met him,” she clarifies, taking a bite of a strawberry and giving a sudden look of surprise at the taste.

Shiro can’t help but laugh at her expression. “You lived on Earth for several years, how did you never have a strawberry?”

She shrugs a shoulder dismissively. “We lived in the desert, and didn’t go into town much. I had apples and oranges and bananas, but I must have missed this one.” She takes a thoughtful bite, and Shiro unwraps his sandwich, watching as she turns it over on her tongue. “It’s good. Are there other things like it?”

“Mm,” Shiro says, chewing, then swallowing, “there are lots of different kinds of berries. I’m not sure there’s anything very similar, but if you like that, you might like raspberries, too.”

“Strawberries,” Krolia says to herself, like she’s making a mental note,  “and raspberries.”

“Strawberries are Keith’s favorite,” Shiro says, “and grapefruit.”

“Grapefruit,” she muses, “like big, pale, oranges, right?” Shiro nods. “I had one of those once. Disgusting.” She shakes her head, and reaches out to pat Keith’s leg. “Well, your kids can’t have good taste in everything, I guess,” she says, and Shiro snorts.

“Guess not,” he says, and takes another bite.

“What was he like,” she says again, and he’s yet to hear a Galra sound wistful, but she’s at least halfway there.

“Um,” he says helpfully, and can’t help but smile as he thinks back. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s been less than a decade, or actually, maybe nearly a decade at this point. Time’s a little fuzzy these days. “Small,” he says finally, and Krolia glances at him curiously, bringing up a knee to her chin and clearly settling in. He looks over at Keith’s sleeping face again, seeing the echo of that defiant boy in the still features of his closest friend. It feels strange to talk about him like this, like he’s not here.

“It’s good for him to hear our voices,” Krolia says, reaching out again to take Keith’s hand carefully in hers. “He won’t wake up for a few days yet, but he knows we’re here.”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, and there’s a lump in his throat, so he swallows hard, takes a drink from his water bottle. “Did he tell you how we met?”

Krolia nods, the corner of her mouth tipping up. “He said you were some fancy-pants officer with a dumb haircut and a too-tight uniform that they sent to inspire the kids.”

Shiro nearly chokes, but manages to recover his composure at a slight cost to his dignity. “And did he mention the part where he blew everyone else’s sim scores out of the water, and then stole my car?”

“No,” Krolia says, with a growing smile, turning her glowing eyes on him. “He didn’t. Tell me _everything_.”

\---

He falls asleep in the recliner and wakes with the dawn, the late summer sun rising over the dusty plains and shining straight in Keith’s east-facing window. He’s grateful, in spite of how tired he still feels, because even though he used to keep to a military schedule with ease, years in space have alienated his body from his usual biorhythms. Actually, he thinks groggily, stumbling into the ensuite to take a piss and scrub haphazardly at his face with a washcloth, this body has never had those rhythms, so maybe that’s why 5:30 am feels so brutal these days. Another thing he’d earned that’s been taken from him, he thinks. He blows out a breath of air that ruffles the hair falling over his forehead, then picks up the complimentary toothbrush to brush the teeth that still feel too new and slick in his mouth.

Krolia’s just coming back as he steps fully dressed out of the bathroom, and he bows briefly in thanks as she holds out a cup of something dark and hot in his direction. He’s not sure anything brewed in the Garrison hospital can really qualify as “coffee”, but that’s not her fault. He downs it in one go, shuddering as it burns down his throat and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Any change?” she asks, crossing to peer down at Keith where he lies unmoving in the bed.

“No,” Shiro says, and she nods, unsurprised. He joins her at the bedside, his hand a fist at his side to keep from reaching, from touching, from cradling Keith’s silent form in his arm and never leaving again. “You’ll be with him all day?”

“Yes,” she answers, “they’re planning to do a full exam this morning, I want to hear what they say.”

“Good,” he says, and watches as she walks to the window and turns her back to him. It takes him a moment to catch on, because what, what does Krolia know that she’s treating him as though he has a right to privacy with her battered son. He comes to his senses after a moment, and closes his eyes, breathing deeply before bending to press his face to Keith’s shoulder. Keith smells of antiseptic and hospital linens, but the curve of his collar bone still cradles the shape of Shiro’s forehead like it was made for him.

“I’ll be back later,” he mumbles under his breath before forcing himself to stand up straight and settle his cap on his head. “Keep me posted?” he asks Krolia, who turns and holds out an arm to him from where she stands by the drapes.

“Of course,” she says as he walks over to her, and then pulls him into a tight hug, ignoring his _whoof_ of surprise. They’re the same height, but she’s whipcord lean and strong where he’s solid and broad, and they bump together more than fit. He puts his arms around her regardless and tries not to think about how this is still in the first ten hugs this body has ever received.

\--

He works, all day. There’s just so much to do. There’s never going to not be so much to do, not for years and years.

\--

He gets back to the hospital sometime near ten that night, and he didn’t have a chance to stop by the commissary for food, but thankfully it looks like Krolia ordered in.

“Sit,” she says, pointing him at the recliner, and putting a take-out container of pad see ew in his lap and a fork in his hand as soon as he’s seated, “eat.”

“God,” Shiro groans around a mouthful of noodles, “thank you. _Thank you_.” He doesn’t want to ask if there’s more after this, because he’s always been a big eater to keep up with his size and his activity level, but this new body burns through fuel like nothing he’s experienced before. He doesn’t know if Haggar changed something fundamental about his genetics when she made it, or if it’s his link to Atlas pulling energy, or what, but it feels like just another small betrayal of the life he used to have.

Krolia sets two more wax paper boxes next to him, ignoring his quiet sigh of relief, and fishes out a spring roll for herself, crunching on it contentedly from across Keith’s sleeping form.

“How is he?” Shiro gets out after he’s inhaled the contents of the first container. He fumbles the next container open one-handed, but Krolia lets him, and he appreciates that she doesn’t watch him struggle or offer to help either one.

“Healing well, they think.” She shrugs one shoulder and crosses her legs. “His bones are knitting faster than expected, and are denser than human bones, though not as sturdy as a full Galra.” Shiro stills his fork and tries very hard not to think about why he knows exactly how thick Galra bones are, or how much force it takes to break them. “No signs of infection,” she continues calmly, “his blood pressure and some of his other readings are unusual, but since there’s no baseline for his normal, they’re deciding not to be concerned unless he shows signs of distress.”

“Good,” Shiro says, and applies himself to the beef and broccoli in front of him. He’s starting to feel less of the panicked starvation feeling that backs up his throat and makes it hard to breathe, and he’s trying to remember to chew every bite, but he can only be so polite when he’s this hungry and eating with his wrong hand.

“How are you?” Krolia asks, and raises a pointed eyebrow at where his shirtsleeve is pinned up to his shoulder. “Difficulties?”

Shiro flushes, and immediately wishes he hadn’t, but it’s dark enough in the room maybe she can’t tell. “No,” he answers evenly, “I just asked Commander Holt to make me a back up, so he had to borrow the original back for a bit.”

“A back up?”

“Yeah,” Shiro sets down his fork in the remaining bits of the food on his lap and rubs his hand over his face. “The one they made for me, it’s great, don’t get me wrong, but…”

“It’s impractical,” Krolia says, and Shiro nods in quiet agreement.

“Yeah. It’s too big. It doesn’t fit in my clothes, and I don’t want to have to get everything custom made. And people keep not seeing the bottom half of it, and then they walk into it, or through it. And…” he trails off, pushing at a piece of broccoli with his fork.

“And it’s a weapon,” Krolia says softly, her golden eyes soft.

“And it’s a weapon,” he echoes, unable to meet her gaze. “And I’m… I don’t want to walk around with something permanently attached to me that’s designed to kill other living beings.”

“You think it’s different than the rest of your body? You can kill people with your other hand, too. Or my knife, which is always on my person?”

Her tone is calm and curious, so he forces himself to keep his composure, taking another bite and chewing interminably before answering.

“Yes,” he says finally. “Your knife is not attached to you. No matter how instinctive the action becomes, you have to make a decision on some level to use it. You can put it down and walk away. It’s a fine distinction, but it’s an important one, to me.”  She nods in understanding, and he exhales. “And yes, I can… I have… killed others with my human hand. But that’s not what it was made for. That’s not its _purpose_. My body…” he trails off helplessly.

“Your body?” Krolia asks, smoothing the sheet across Keith’s chest and reaching across to take Shiro’s hand in hers.

He exhales hard. “I was going to say my body was made in love, to live a life of love and happiness and exploration, but then I realized that’s not true.” He looks determinedly at the wall, breathing carefully. “This body was made in anger, to hurt and sabotage everyone and everything I care about. This body is a weapon, made as a weapon, and has never had any purpose other than to be a weapon.”

Krolia’s thumb strokes softly across the skin on the back of his hand.

“That was all before you were in it,” she says reasonably, her touch firm and warm. “Since it’s had your spirit, it has touched only to help and protect. It’s saved billions, a whole planet and also individuals. It helped create a whole new defender of the universe.”

“Yeah,” he breathes, unconvinced, and she lets him go.

“Yes,” she says firmly, and stands in a smooth motion, stretching like a cat until something cracks. “Finish your food, and get some rest.”

“Yes, mom,” he says, and he thinks the smirk that twists the corner of her mouth up is quietly pleased. “You don’t have to leave,” he starts, realizing that maybe she thinks that he’s not comfortable with her for long periods of time.

“Oh, I know,” she says, shaking her head and walking to the door. “They’ve given me a guest room on the first floor. I’m too old to sleep in chairs, and he’ll be fine with you.”

“Oh,” Shiro says, deciding not to question how she knows that he only wants to stay here as long as he can. “Okay.”

“Call me if anything changes,” she says, and he nods, and then she’s gone.

He sets the leftover food on the table next to him and stands, getting the lid back on the remaining container and placing it in the minifridge before taking his new standard-issue shirt and shorts into the bathroom to change. It’s difficult, one-handed- he doesn’t have the practice. His Galra arm wasn’t the same as the one they took, but it did function, and he did use it for everyday tasks, as well as for other things. He pushes down the memory of Keith’s terrified face and focuses on brushing his teeth wronghanded.

A nurse is there when he comes out, taking notes of Keith’s vital signs and adjusting the equipment around the bed. His eyes widen when he sees Shiro, but he doesn’t say a word, just finishes his work and leaves quietly, leaving Shiro to settle into the chair again, turned sideways so he can just look at Keith for a long moment.

It’s dark in the room, the only light from a bedside table lamp Krolia had had on when he came in and the radiating glow of the Garrison reflecting up from several floors below them. Keith’s face is still in the dim light, the disarray of his hair casting shadows over his features. Shiro reaches out to touch him instinctively, his hand stroking down the side of Keith’s forehead to brush a piece of hair aside, but moving it reveals the sharp line of the still healing scar. Shiro’s heart clenches, one finger reaching out to trace its shape.

The memory is fuzzy and purple-tinged, Keith struggling beneath him as he lowers the blade, burning into the flesh of his face, the eyes that have followed him for years staring up at him in pain and disbelief.

He shakes his head to dispel it, and brings his hand back. He has no right to this, not in this body, not after all that’s happened. He settles into his chair and leans back, head unutterably heavy, and lets himself go.

\--

Commander Holt sends him away the next day at dinner time, in spite of Shiro’s protests. “It’s a marathon, Shiro,” he says gently, “you’re going to be no use to any of us soon if you keep going like this, and we need you for the long haul.” He reaches up to settle a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “Go get some food. Take some time for yourself. Get a massage, or go to the gym, or take a nap.” His eyes crinkle up with amusement. “Find a crowbar to pry loose one of my kids and find a movie.”

“Yes, sir,” Shiro says, and forces himself to smile. Sam means well, he knows, he just doesn’t quite get it, how it is for Shiro. Sam has Colleen, and Matt and Pidge, and a home, he has something to go to, somewhere to belong. Shiro has the work; it’s what redeems him. He has the work, and he has the person he cares about more than anyone else lying silent in an impersonal bed. But Sam means well, and also Sam isn’t wrong; Shiro is smart enough to know it, so he goes.

The mess hall is about to close, but he gets in just under the wire and devours a massive burrito in what’s admittedly an unhealthy amount of time, then grabs another one to go. He finds a student lounge with no one in it and cartoons playing on the tv and takes his time with the second, trying to let himself taste Earth food again, making an effort to identify the individual flavors of the beans, the lime, the guacamole.

He waits the requisite half hour through the next episode of whatever it is on the screen, then goes to the gym and works out till he’s shaking. It’s exhausting and focusing and exactly what he needs, the mindless repetition until his body is not a weapon, not a gift, nothing but a vessel, a tool to be used as he wills. It grounds him, sets his mind free to glide out the window, over the desert, up past the thermosphere and into the starry darkness.

He racks his weights and showers, savoring the burn in his shoulder as he rubs a towel roughly over his hair. He dresses in a clean uniform, runs a comb over the top of his head and walks out into the late evening light.

The memorial is at the heart of the Garrison property, in what used to be a hangar but which has been re-done in the years since he’s been gone into a sort of large meditative space. There are some grand and impersonal abstract sculptures at the far end, and then the curved semi-circle of the memorial wall at the other. Piles of flowers and small stuffed animals rest at the base of it, pictures or notes pinned to the edifice itself with tape or ticky-tack, the occasional candle or stick of incense burning in a small dish of sand.

He doesn’t want to be here, wants to be anywhere other than here if he’s honest. But he knows he’s going to feel guilty until he’s come and seen it for himself, so he makes himself cross the large, empty space, the sound of his boots echoing into the still air around him.

He’d gotten the full story from Sam the first night down, as they were waiting for responses to come in from the rescue teams searching for the paladins: How Sendak and his troops had attacked, how the first wave of defenders had launched without question and had died without fail. He should have been there, they both know it, should have gone down beside Adam as one of the Garrison’s first and best, the glorious cannon fodder flaming out as fast as the Galra ships could point and fire. Keith should have been there, too, one of the best pilots the Garrison had ever seen. Would have been there, if he hadn’t been kicked out, and Shiro can’t help but feel his guts twist in conflict at the knowledge that his own absence, his own loss and torture, had inadvertently saved Keith from the same blazing trail of glory that claimed their peers.

There’s no one else present, and he’s grateful. He stands for a moment staring at wall, the sheer size and scale of it. He tries to imagine each name as a person, tries to see all of the individual humans standing in front of him. How big a crowd would it be? A mess-hall full? An assembly’s worth? A graduation, he decides finally, a full graduation crowd of cadets and friends and family and faculty. All gone, all lost forever, now just bronze plaques and bones in the dirt or ashes in the wind.

It’s easy to find the marker he’s looking for, about halfway up the wall, gleaming in the low light with an identical burnished glow to the hundreds around it.

“Adam,” he says quietly, and reaches out to touch it. He feels like his heart is breaking open in his chest, but he’s felt like that for months, maybe years at this point, so it’s hard to tell any difference. Maybe this body’s heart is faulty, he thinks, maybe it will always ache like its been cracked open and left to dry.

\--

Krolia is there when he comes to the hospital, working a comb through Keith’s dark hair.

“I know he wouldn’t care,” she says without preamble, “but honestly, he’s going to wake up with dreadlocks, and even _I_ know he can’t pull that off.”

Shiro can’t help the involuntary smile at the pique in her voice; he’s heard exactly that tone too many times to count.

“You could just cut it,” he points out, trying and failing to picture Keith with short hair. Would it make him look older or younger? Shiro’s not sure. He’s not sure how old any of them actually are at this point anyway, so it’s probably a moot point.

“No,” she says, frowning as she pulls carefully through a tangle, “he’ll wake up soon, and I don’t want to take his choices from him.”

Shiro rubs half-heartedly at his stump, and nods. Bodily agency is important, he can get behind that.

“I was thinking pigtails,” Krolia muses, and Shiro laughs out loud before he can stop himself. Her smirk is satisfied, and he shrugs off his uniform jacket still chuckling at the thought. “Or maybe just a big ponytail right on top of his head.”

“He’d look like a pineapple,” Shiro says, coming over to join her as she pulls the comb through the last tuft of hair. It’s still sticking up all over Keith’s head, as thick and unruly as ever, but it looks smooth now, touchable and soft. He knows what it would feel like on his hand, has cradled Keith’s head against his shoulder or held it up off the ground enough times to remember the texture and weight of it, but he keeps his hand hooked into his back belt loop, watching, not touching.

“I was thinking,” Krolia says, “that we should be touching him more. Who knows how much he’s aware of, but maybe it would help him heal.”

“Mmm,” Shiro comments observantly, stepping to the doorway to toe off his shoes.

“I know touch is important to humans, Keith’s dad use to talk about it.”

“You sure he wasn’t just trying to pick you up?”

“Oh, I’m sure he _was_. Worked, too,” she says with a grin, and Shiro shakes his head in mock dismay. “But it’s also true. Galra are social, but we’re less dependent on tactile contact than you, I think. Our ancestors weren’t tribal in the same way humans’ were. But Keith was raised as a human, so I think… maybe we touch him more.”

“Ok,” Shiro says, because as many reasons as he has for keeping his hand to himself, he’ll throw them all away for something that will help bring Keith back.

“Good,” Krolia says, and stretches, setting the comb on the side table as she gets to her feet. “I’m heading off. I had a message from Kolivan that he’ll be in tonight, so I’m going to go meet him and get him apprised of the situation here.”

Shiro nods. Krolia is, in fact, a powerful warrior and an important leader in her own right. It’s easy to forget it when he sees her here, but she can’t put her life on hold any more than he can, not for long.

“It seems unfair to him,” Shiro says, and registers her raised eyebrow before he realizes he’s spoken aloud. “Just… everyone else has their friends and family with them non-stop, and Keith, he’s just got us. And you’re great,” he says, backpedaling as he realizes what he’s saying, “I don’t mean to say that you’re not giving him a lot, just… it feels like we’re ships passing in the night, and he deserves more than that.”

Krolia, thank god, seems to understand his meaning better than his words. “Do you think that’s what he’d want? The two of us here around the clock, watching him sleep and counting his breaths?”

“No,” Shiro shakes his head reluctantly, “it’d drive him nuts to have us wasting time on him when there’s so much else to do.”

“Right,” she says, and sets a hand on his shoulder, setting off sense memories of Sam in spite of her claws, “he would hate it. He knows us, and he knows who we are. He wouldn’t respect us if we threw over everything just to sit around and wait for him to wake up. We’re here, we’re with him. He is never alone, never without support. But we’re also needed elsewhere, and he knows that.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, and covers her hand with his own. He wonders, sometimes, what those two years Keith and Krolia spent entirely alone were like. A gift, he thinks, for both of them. “Thanks,” he says, not entirely sure why, and she gives that knowing smile she’s perfected.

“Get some rest, Shiro,” she says, and bumps her head affectionately against his, like a cat, he thinks absurdly, before she walks out of the room, pulling the door behind her.

“Yeah,” Shiro says again, and sighs.

\--

He changes his clothes and brushes his teeth, takes a leak and washes his hand. On a whim, fills a basin with warm water and drapes a clean washcloth and a towel over his shoulder before he makes his way over to where Keith lies alone and silent in his bed. He gets the basin and the cloth and the towel settled on the side table before he goes fishing in the drawers to the side of the bed and comes up lucky with a fresh shirt. He’s pretty sure they’d had to cut some of Keith’s armor off him, which accounts for the disappearance of his black undershirt, but he’s been in the same pair of back-laced hospital separates ever since, and it’s time for a change.

“Your mom says we need to touch you more,” he tells Keith, feeling silly already. “I guess that’s probably true, but it’s a little weird when you’re just lying there. So. I hope you don’t mind.”

He wets the cloth and picks up the hand that’s closest to him, but quickly realizes the logistical issue - he can’t support Keith’s arm and wash it at the same time. He sets the cloth back in the water and thinks for a moment, then carefully gets his arm under Keith’s shoulders and scoots him over a few inches, pushing at his hips to get him lined up again. Keith gives a sudden breathy exhale, and Shiro freezes for a long moment, wondering if he’s about to wake, but his breathing subsides into the same deep sleep pattern it’s been for days, and Shiro relaxes.

If he gets the railing on the side of the bed down, he can park his left hip on the bed next to Keith and drape Keith’s arm over his thigh, leaving it bare and within easy reach, palm upturned.

“There,” he says, and reaches for the cloth. The basin is one of those medical ones that’s designed to keep water warm, which is nice. He doesn’t want to inadvertently give Keith hypothermia. “So, how’ve you been?” He laughs derisively at himself, but picks up the cloth and runs it over Keith’s arm, starting at his elbow and stroking down to his hand. “I bet it’s been killing you, hearing us tell stories about you. Almost as bad as having to smell the thai food while being on a feeding tube.”

His hand is still large enough to wrap all the way around Keith’s forearm, just like when they were at the Garrison and sparred three times a week. It makes this easier, getting all the way around and down to his wrist without having readjust their body position. He rinses the cloth and starts on Keith’s hand, cleaning each finger carefully, dipping into the spaces between them and wiping carefully across the back of his hand. The nurses had cleaned him up pretty well after his surgeries, but there are still a few trace smudges of what must be desert dirt or soot from the crash that work off under the pressure of his hand. There are new calluses across Keith’s palm, and Shiro lets his thumb trace them, thinking of the motions that must have caused them: the thrust of Black’s controls, the repeated slashes and parries with his Marmora blade. His palm is broader now, his fingers more weathered and stronger where they rest against Shiro’s own.

“I went to see Adam today,” Shiro says, dropping the cloth back in the water as he considers how to get at Keith’s upper arm. “I needed to do it. He deserved that much from me.”

He gets Keith’s arm bent, elbow pressed against Shiro’s thigh and palm lifted up to rest against his shoulder, which frees up his bicep from the bed and lets Shiro hold Keith’s hand in place with his chin as he works the cloth into the bend of Keith’s arm.

“I loved him. I did. And he loved me, but…” he sighs, rinsing the cloth and bringing it back to wipe down the back side of Keith’s arm, triceps down to bony point. “It wasn’t enough, I guess. He just wanted to keep me safe, and he didn’t… he didn’t understand that that was the last thing I wanted.” Shiro breathes out through his mouth and drops the cloth back in the water, catching Keith’s wrist in his hand and lowering his arm to the bed. He takes the towel and carefully dries any remaining dampness from the pale skin.

“Ok, other side.” It takes him a moment to get the rail back up on this side of the bed, and to get the towel over his shoulder, and the basin over to the matching table on Keith’s other side. Once he has all the accoutrements settled, he has to scoot Keith over in the direction to make room for him to sit. It’s significantly harder on this side, because it requires him to basically turn his arm over to get enough of it under Keith’s shoulders that he can lift him adequately, but he manages. Keith is silent this time, and Shiro can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved. He wants Keith to wake up, wants it deeply, viscerally, but he’s not sure who will be more shocked if it happens right now.

Finally he gets everything situated, and this side is a little nicer, because he gets his hip up on the bed so that he’s facing Keith this time, instead of them both facing his feet.  It feels like a more natural position to have Keith’s arm draped across his lap this way, more like they’d been grasping forearms, and Keith had just drifted off.

“He liked you, you know,” Shiro says, starting with Keith’s fingers this time. He’s glad he’s doing this, because he’s pretty sure that’s days-old Kosmo drool on the back of Keith’s hand, and that’s just disgusting. “I know you never really felt comfortable around him, but he thought you were a great flier. He got annoyed sometimes at how much time we spent together, but it wasn’t like he didn’t think you were worth it. He just…wanted more. From me.”

There’s a scar across Keith’s forearm that wasn’t there before, and Shiro traces it with his index finger. It looks old, but he couldn’t say if it’s from the two years Keith spent with Krolia or from before. The memories he’s inherited in this body from the time when he was in the astral plane are spotty and hard to reconcile with his own memories of that time. As far as his own consciousness goes, he hasn’t touched Keith skin to skin like this in literal years, and that just seems impossible. They spent so much time before in each other’s space, and then he was gone, and then there was unending fighting, and then he… he died, and now he’s in this body that has never touched Keith, not like this at all, ever, as far as he can tell. He rinses the cloth and uses it to wipe at his own face before leaning down to rub it across Keith’s bicep.

“He didn’t come to see me off, and I was angry with him. I thought it was so petty. Even if we’d been together for nearly two years, we’d been friends for longer than that. I thought he’d come anyway, because of that, because of our friendship. But I think I underestimated him.” Shiro puts the cloth back in the bowl and lays Keith’s arm gently on the bed, rubbing it over with the towel before looking up to consider his next steps.

“Ok,” he says, “I think we can make this work.”

He takes the basin over to the sink and changes the water first, bringing it back to the table and trading it for the cloth, which he rinses under the running water. When that’s all ready, he comes around to Keith’s side and lifts his arm so that it lies across his chest, allowing Shiro to pull the fabric of the hospital shirt around and over his shoulder. It’s a little challenging to get Keith’s arm out through the sleeve, but he manages it, and then repeats the process on the other side until the fabric pulls free and he can drop it beside the bed.

He takes a moment to just look. The low light illuminates the planes and dips of Keith’s torso in vivid relief, picking out an unfamiliar landscape charted in topographical relief. He’s seen Keith shirtless plenty of times, of course, but not recently, and he’s different than Shiro remembers. He’s an adult now, and it shows: his musculature is still slim, but it’s become more defined. His shoulders are more broad, and his pale skin is mottled with purpling bruises from the crash, the lines of his pilot’s harness crisscrossing his chest. It makes SHiro suddenly and unaccountably sad, this physical evidence of his absence. Even knowing he’d be gone for a year to Kerberos had been tough to accept in the context of Keith, though it was a price worth paying for his dream come true, but the rest of it… he didn’t consent to this. He didn’t consent to any of this, the war, his death, his rebirth, the war again. He didn’t consent to Keith changing without him around to see it unfold.

The water is gently steaming, and it feels good on the knuckles of his hand as he dips the cloth and starts at Keith’s shoulders, rubbing firmly across his deltoids and clavicles, then rinsing before scrubbing at his sternum.

“I thought I’d see him again,” he says, and he doesn’t know why he’s saying all this to Keith’s unconscious form, but he doesn’t know how to stop now that he’s come so far. “Even after I was captured, even after Voltron, I always thought I’d come back, and at least get a chance to talk to him. We weren’t going to get back together, that wasn’t on the table. I hurt him too much when I left, and I was too angry that he didn’t want me to go. But…”

He rinses the cloth and pulls the sheet down to Keith’s waist. He’s crying openly now, but it’s pushing eleven pm and he’s mostly alone in this dark hospital room, so what does it matter anyway, he thinks. Shiro the hero, weeping over his dead ex as he tries to comfort the unconscious man he feels like he barely knows anymore, but who has saved him more times than he can count. Who will judge him for this?

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, running the cloth over Keith’s stomach and sides, trying his best not to press on the bruises any more than necessary. There’s no real way for him to get Keith’s back by himself without turning Keith over fully, and that seems like more trouble than it’s worth, so he rinses the cloth and uses it to give Keith one more good wipe down, from his neck to his pant line, and then sets it aside to towel him dry. “I hate this,” he whispers, shaking out the clean shirt and getting Keith’s hands into the sleeves before pulling it up, first one side, then the other. “I hate that you’re not here. Wake up soon, okay?” He gets it mostly shut in the back and lays Keith carefully back down, straightening all his limbs and pulling the sheet back up to his chest. He realizes abruptly that he’s exhausted, but he makes himself pour out the water and hang the cloth and the towel in the ensuite to dry before he comes back to stand by the bed.

Keith looks peaceful, he thinks, and he reaches up to push his bangs out of face without thinking. It’s a futile gesture, they fall immediately back into place, but that touch of Keith’s hair on his fingers brings back so many memories he feels like he’s drowning.

He sets himself down in the chair, ignoring the way his hand shakes as he tries to bring up the foot rest, and turns out the light.

\--

Iverson corners him the next evening as he’s powering down Atlas after a 12 hour shift of helping to slice up and transport wrecked Galra ships to where they’ll be studied and salvaged.

“Captain,” he says, “come with me,” and Shiro follows obediently to Iverson’s office feeling like a kid again about to find out what he’s done wrong, but the first words out of Iverson’s mouth are “Thank you,” and Shiro doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Sir?” he ventures after a long moment, perplexed.

“Just,” Iverson waves a hand at him, and he’s always gruff, but there’s an undercurrent of emotion to him now that he’d never have let show when Shiro was a cadet. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s the years of war, but Iverson’s a subtly different man now. As are they all, he supposes. “You were always going to be great, Shirogane, everyone knew it, but the things you and your team have done here…” he passes a hand over his face, then catches Shiro’s gaze. “Thank you,” he says again, and Shiro nods.

“I couldn’t have done it alone,” Shiro says, but Iverson shakes his head almost angrily.

“You damn near could have, and you’re about the only one who could. Don’t pretend it’s not true, captain,” he says, and Shiro nearly smiles at the lecturing tone in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” Shiro says instead, “I’m just grateful I was here to help.”

“Good,” Iverson says, “then you won’t mind doing one last thing for me,” and smiles.

\--

“They want me to give the speech at the memorial service they’re planning for Friday,” Shiro says when Krolia and Kolivan have left, putting his head in his hand and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. There’s a strand of it caught on his palm when he pulls his hand free, gleaming and white in the low light. He’s not used to it yet, had only really kind of gotten used to the front of his hair being white, and now it’s all that way. It just makes him look like an old man, he thinks. Ironic that this new body is healthier than its ever been, but looks worse. “Should I dye my hair?” he asks, “is that dumb?”

Keith, predictably, does not answer. The doctors are getting a little mystified by how long he’s stayed under. He’s healing well, and they’ve reduced his sedation to a point where he could wake up at any point, but he hasn’t yet.

“Kid needs a break,” Kolivan had said succinctly, and shrugged. Krolia had sighed, and patted Keith’s leg.

“Don’t take too long, kiddo. The sponge baths are gonna get uncomfortably personal pretty soon.”

Kolivan laughed, and Shiro flushed, and then he was alone with Keith’s sleeping form again.

He puts the rail down on the bed and lays his head and arms on the mattress. “I wasn’t even here for most of what they want me to talk about. What am I supposed to say? _Congratulations on keeping the planet around long enough that my team could sweep in and save the day at the last minute_?” He exhales and shoves his head into Keith’s side. They used to lie like this sometimes on the floor years ago, Keith on his back, his head propped up against the wall or the bottom of the couch or the edge of his bunk, Shiro on his stomach, head shoved in under Keith’s skinny arm, face pressed into the carpet. He remembers the feel of Keith’s idle fingers in his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck. It would settle both of them, and after a while Shiro would sit back up, and they would continue talking or studying or watching TV.

He waits, but Keith’s hand doesn’t move.

“I get it, I mean, the visual is great. Iverson says the lions are all pretty cleaned up now, and they’re going to have the team position them behind the stand, and get everyone in uniform. Flowers, and portraits, bunting, pull out all the stops.” He sighs into the sheets. “Sam said that it’s what the public needs, to see something going right, and I get it. I do. Just…” he reaches over, and picks up Keith’s hand, brings it over and sets it on the crown of his head. It doesn’t help, not really, but he leaves it there, stroking Keith’s forearm as he talks. “Just, why me? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to be a figurehead. I’m afraid they’re going to try to shunt me into some mascot role where Atlas flies around, gets its picture taken with me and Allura cutting ribbons or holding babies, but never actually does anything. What if… what if they keep me from going to space again? We know Haggar’s still out there, we know this isn’t over. Voltron has to go fight, _you’re_ going to have to go fight, and if the Garrison tries to keep me here…”

He lets his voice trail off. “I’ve already lasted longer than I was supposed to,” he says, and then snorts ruefully against the mattress, “or not. I guess that body expired right around when it was supposed to, though I’ll give myself credit for not needing hospice care. This one… god, who knows? Sam says my disease is gone, which is great, but…”

He gives up and pulls Keith’s hand off his head, straightening out his arm and laying it down beside him, then carefully scooting Keith’s body to the far side of the mattress as much as he can without crowding him. He climbs up on the bed and stretches out on his side, his chest pressed to Keith’s shoulder, his arm folded over Keith’s chest, careful not to jar any of the tubes or monitors. He doesn’t fit well, too big for the small space, but it feels good to lie down in something that’s not a chair, feels good to have the heat and weight of Keith pressed against him. Like this, he can pretend that Keith’s only napping, that he fell asleep during a movie marathon, or that he stayed up too late studying.

“I have to do it, I can’t say no to them. They’ve already written an outline, I just have to fill it in with my own words. So, I guess I’ll get up tomorrow and put on my uniform, and get my arm back from Sam, and get up there and say what needs to be said.” He resettles his hand over Keith’s heart and tucks his face into the pillow. “And after that… I don’t know.”

\--

He dreams in the night that Keith is awake, that his eyes open and he speaks, his hand on Shiro’s face.

“Shiro,” he says, “ _Takashi_ ,” and laughs as he touches Shiro’s white hair, says “hey, old man, don’t worry - we’ll figure it out,” and smiles.

When he wakes up, Keith is still asleep, but it feels different, seems lighter, maybe. Even so, Shiro doesn’t want to rush him, so he eases himself carefully off the bed and makes his morning ablutions. He brushes his dress uniform and polishes his shoes, combs his hair and brushes his teeth. He wants to get to the Garrison in plenty of time to finish the speech and make sure everything’s ready to go. There will be pictures, of course, and interviews, if he knows anything about Garrison publicity. It’s not what he wants, but it’s his duty, and he will do it like the good soldier he’s always tried to be.

He hovers over Keith for a long moment, letting himself acknowledge the desperate pull to stay here, to never leave this room again. He bends, presses their foreheads together, and lays his hand briefly over Keith’s heart. “I’ll be back,” he says, and means it.

Krolia meets him with a cup of coffee at the door, and he takes it gratefully, bowing politely in gratitude. “Knock ‘em dead,” she says, “we’ll be watching,” and he manages a smile for her as he heads out into the hallway.

\--

He slips back through the hospital hallways, trying not to be seen. He can hear his own voice echoing from the various rooms’ viewscreens as the channels replay the memorial service from an hour ago.

“ _Today is a solemn day,_ ” he intones, and he tries to hear it as though he’s someone else, as though he has nothing to do with that serious-faced, scarred, white-haired man standing in a grey uniform behind a lectern, surrounded by portraits of the dead and shells of the living.

Finally he gets to the right room, and slips through the door. The viewscreen is on in here, too, the sound of polite applause as he finishes a sentence. _Oh god_ , he thinks, _the inspirational part is up next._

“Would you mind turning that…” he starts, looking at Krolia and Kolivan, but can’t finish his sentence because he’s interrupted by a new voice.

“Shiro,” Keith says, his voice rusty but his eyes are as big and dark and luminous as Shiro’s ever seen them, “ _Takashi_.” He’s sitting up in bed, his arms wide open, and there’s a white noise that fills Shiro’s ears. He doesn’t remember walking across the room, he’s only aware that he’s in Keith’s arms, that he can hear Keith’s voice murmuring into his neck, and that it’s Keith’s hands holding him as he finally breaks apart.

This time, he thinks distantly, as he feels Keith’s fingers clutching in his hair, as he feels his heart cracking open all over again, it’s as least as much joy as pain.

He’s grateful.

  



End file.
